we have had a couple of incidents on our med-surg unit with 2 of our techs. one which involved me! i had a patient that was in for dehiscence of a surgical wound. i walked into the patients room and the tech said "you don't have to worry about doing the dressing change i already did it." i said "did you reinforce it or change it?" she said that she changed it. we walked out of the patients room and i asked her if she changed the packing and she said yes!!!!!!!
i told her only nurses can change dressings and especially packing. she said "i know" i told my charge nurse what happend. in the mean time my patients doctor (surgeon with a god complex) shows up. removes the dressing and it was not packed correctly and we had specific orders to pack it with dry gauze not wet. and he wanted individual 4x4 packed in it not the 4x4's in the boat because the individual 4x4's are more fluffy and absorb more . i know, just giving you an idea of what i was dealing with. so the surgeon/god threw a fit and i told him what happend. i wasn't going to take the fall for that tech. anyways the tech got suspended without pay for 2 days and is on probation. the tech is not a new tech. she's been working as a tech for more than 10 years so she knows better. i have no idea why she thought she could get away with doing that. i haven't seen her since this incident.
another incident with a different tech happend and another nurse. the nurse got a post-op patient. she didn't know they came up for surgery. the tech walks in the room and sets them up with frequent vitals. the recovery room nurse starts giving her report and they assess the patient and go over doctors orders. the tech didn't inform her that she was the tech or let the nurse know the patient was in the room! so the nurse walks by the room and sees the patient in the room. she introduces herself and asks where the recovery room nurse is. they told her the nurse amy (not her real name) was already in here and took report from the
recovery room nurse, which made the real nurse feel stupid and made her look like she didn't know what she was doing!
the charge nurse talked to the recovery room nurse and said the tech didn't identify herself as the tech or say that she would get the nurse. she took report! so this tech is in trouble for impersonateing a nurse. this just happend so i don't know what is going to happen to her!
I almost went into a rage-induced stroke when I found out that on of my aides.. . (Who is "about to go to nursing school", as she informs us all) not only gave the EMS report on my pt, but also sent him off with them... I had to chase them down, running through the parking lot, waving all of the paperwork like a maniac.
Ugh. I do a fine job of making myself look stupid, I don't need anyone's help.
Specializes in Leadership, Psych, HomeCare, Amb. Care.
I have a question that might be better placed on another thread -- if so, I ask for moderater advice.
Question: What can patients and their families do to prevent (or deal with) situations like the one described by the OP? I'm assuming they do this with civility yet being respectfully assertive. How can they do this without the potential of being labeled "bad patients" or "difficult?"
Know who you are dealing with.
A proper introduction is something like, "Ms Jones, I'm Mr Chicago RN, and I'll be your nurse for the next 8 hours."
If the person doesn't fully introduce them self, and don't have a clearly visible ID. You ask them who they are. If they say "the nurse," ask for their name & if they are RN or LPN.
Does nobody wear name tags with their qualifications on them ? What happened to those honking shingles hanging off of the name tags? Color-coded with big capital RN or LPN/LVN or PCT, CNA, MT, whatever..... ?????
And, is the person who started this in 2008 around to fill in on what happened? :)
Lynx25, LPN
331 Posts
I almost went into a rage-induced stroke when I found out that on of my aides.. . (Who is "about to go to nursing school", as she informs us all) not only gave the EMS report on my pt, but also sent him off with them... I had to chase them down, running through the parking lot, waving all of the paperwork like a maniac.
Ugh. I do a fine job of making myself look stupid, I don't need anyone's help.